


Paper-and-Lead

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, Snapshots, Suggestive Themes, Swearing, but a happy ending :), fluff with minor angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 19:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11042490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: “Chris Evans,” Nat muses. “He looks likes you.”“That’s what I said.”Steve says, “He doesn’t think I can grow a beard,” and Nat laughs.“I can’t wait until Nick hears about this” is all she says, and then the counter collapses. From his new position on the floor, Steve sees her pick her way through the counter shards—the blast zone was wider than he’d thought—and hold out a hand to Bucky. Sighing, Bucky pulls out his wallet.“Was that what that was?” he demands.“What?” Nat says, holding up a twenty dollar bill to the light.Steve flaps a hand. “The super secret Soviet assassin death stare conversation.”“Yeah,” Bucky says, sighing again. He crosses the wreckage and pulls Steve to his feet. “You said Stark designed these. I had some hope.”“Have you ever seen Tony in the kitchen?” Nat and Steve say in unison.Bucky makes a face. “That’s fair.”______________Domestic Stucky with background Avengers as part of the Cap RBB for 2017 :) Steve's POV.





	Paper-and-Lead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatthefoucault](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/gifts).



> This is my fanfic for the amazing whatthefoucault's artwork :) You can find her on Tumblr [right here!](http://whatthefoucault.tumblr.com)
> 
> All my love to [Mercedes](http://skatzaa.tumblr.com) and [Marlee](http://oh-emdee.tumblr.com) for beta-ing! <3

__________________

 

They’re on the L section of their couch when Bucky says, “He kinda looks like you, doesn’t he?”

And it’s nice how they are, because Steve’s head is on Bucky’s stomach, and he can feel him speaking. It’s anchoring. It lets him sink into the cushions. “Does he?”

Onscreen is another romantic drama Sam sent them. He and Nat and Clint have been trying to catch Steve and Bucky up with what’s been going on in the world without them; this movie,  _ Before We Go, _ is the second movie they’ve watched tonight. 

It’s soft and sappy, and bittersweet, and the male protagonist does bear a passing resemblance to Steve. They’ve got the same general face shape, though Nick has a beard so it’s hard to be absolutely sure.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and the words vibrate against Steve’s head. “If you stopped shaving for a month.”

Steve snorts. “I can grow a beard in less than a month,” he says.

Bucky says, “Yeah?” and Steve pictures him raising his eyebrow the same way he did when they used to dare each other to lick the flagpole in winter. “You think?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky hums. “You’d look weird with a beard. What would the press say?”

“Fuck the press,” Steve says. He pulls the blanket up just under his chin. 

“Only if you’re there, too,” Bucky says, and Steve sits up and leans toward him, and they don’t pay much attention to the movie after that.

____________

 

Steve wakes up some time later. It takes a moment, or three, to figure out what woke him; blearily he realizes the air conditioned air is dancing cool on his exposed knee.

He and Bucky are sprawled out facing each other on the couch and he carefully eases his hand out of Bucky’s grip to readjust his blanket. Bucky mumbles something about—space and planets, Steve thinks, but he doesn’t wake up. 

Bucky in the grey scale of the living room at three in the morning, kissed softly by the dim lamp on the table, is a sight Steve never thought he’d have so he takes his time. Gently, so as not to wake him up, Steve crawls over and kisses his knuckles and falls asleep again. 

____________

 

“This place is a mess,” Sam’s voice observes casually from near the door. Steve blinks; Sam had turned on the lights, the asshole. Turned on the lights and opened the curtains, because afternoon sunlight is now flooding through the windows.

Bucky’s sitting up, one hand clenched tight around a knife. Steve has no idea where that came from—Bucky isn’t, well. Bucky’s not wearing anything right now—but he isn’t surprised. Bucky always had a habit of carrying small knives around with him.

A foot kicks the couch and just now Steve could fight Sam and probably feel okay about it afterward. That was Steve’s best sleep in ages.

Steve flops onto his back and rubs his eyes and yelps. Sam, his face inches from Steve’s, grins. “You’re awake!” And then, after Steve pushes Sam’s grin away and sits up: “You’re naked!”

Bucky laughs, smiling a smile Steve would like to kiss, and says, “That’s what you get for not knocking.”

“I knocked, I did knock, I just—there’s no way to sit here now, is there?”

Steve shrugs. Bucky taps a rhythm into the muscles around his spine. Sam shakes his head at them both.

“Is this what you’re doing today?” he asks. “Sitting around naked watching TV?”

“Probably not the only thing we’ll be doing naked,” Steve says. Bucky smothers a laugh on the skin between Steve’s shoulder blades. Steve smiles brightly at the respect and  _ I can’t with you two _ mingling on Sam’s face.

Sam says, “Just wondering. I didn’t need—anyway. Nat and I are going out for food tonight, so we were wondering.”

“Get us carryout?” Bucky says, talking into Steve’s skin. Steve reaches behind him for Bucky’s thigh and Bucky moves his hand to Steve’s waist. He wonders briefly how far they can go without Sam realizing.

“Wait until I’m out of the room at least,” Sam says. He raises his eyebrows, amused, and stares determinedly at the generic photo on the wall.

Not too far, apparently. “Sorry,” Steve says, somewhat sheepish.

“I’m not,” Bucky says, and his hand slides down lower, and then Steve really isn’t sorry either

Sam says, sighing, “Should’ve sent Nat,” and Steve hums in agreement. She’s always been more at ease with nudity than is comfortable for any of them.

And then Bucky presses flush against Steve’s back and now he can acutely feel how much Bucky doesn’t want Sam there, how not sorry he is. And then Bucky’s kissing his way up to Steve’s neck and now Sam looks like he’s realizing that they’re threatening to not wait, and he bobs his head. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sam says, and ducks out.

Bucky says, “I won.”

“I said he’d stay for five minutes,” Steve says. He turns to face Bucky, and takes his hand. “I think I won.” 

“But I said kissing you would make him leave, so.” 

“Mmm. Nah, I don’t think so.”

Bucky kisses him now as if to prove him wrong. “No?”

“Definitely not kissing like that,” Steve says, but he’s leaning for another, so he doesn’t think Bucky thinks he means it. He hopes not.

Just before they kiss Steve whispers, “You owe me five bucks.”

“Five fucks?” Bucky whispers back. He nudges Steve until Steve’s on his back and Bucky’s propped up over him, hair brushing against Steve’s chest. Something inside Steve twists in a most pleasant way. “If I gotta.”

____________

 

When they aren’t terrorizing anyone who pops in on them unexpectedly, they’re at the library or in the rest of the Avengers Complex or on that one street downtown that smells like candy because of the Chocolate Café taking up half a block. Steve’s favorite place outside of the Complex is the café and Bucky’s is the library, so they switch whenever they leave.

Nat gives Steve grief about the hickeys on his neck until he turns it around on her, citing the time when she and Sam broke the sink in the shared kitchen—“An accident, Steve, I don’t know how it happened,” Sam had said; “Oh no yeah we got a little. Carried away. He does this thing,” Nat had started, but Steve had stopped her before she could say anything else—and she narrows her eyes. 

He doesn’t often make her speechless. It’s a good feeling. 

She clears her throat. “Where’re you going today?”

“Library,” Steve says. He hops up on the counter; it creaks concerningly under his weight.

Bucky says, “We’re getting more movies with that one guy in it.”

“Which one guy?”

“Chris Evans?” Steve says. He shifts, and the counter makes a noise of protest.

“Maybe get down,” Bucky says. “That counter probably can’t hold you.”

Nat clears her throat again and shares a look with Bucky that Steve can’t understand. Bucky shrugs, then nods.

“What,” Steve says, but they ignore the question.

“Chris Evans,” Nat muses. “He looks likes you.”

“That’s what I said.”

Steve says, “He doesn’t think I can grow a beard,” and Nat laughs.

“I can’t wait until Nick hears about this” is all she says, and then the counter collapses. From his new position on the floor, Steve sees her pick her way through the counter shards—the blast zone was wider than he’d thought—and hold out a hand to Bucky. Sighing, Bucky pulls out his wallet.

“Was that what that was?” he demands.

“What?” Nat says, holding up a twenty dollar bill to the light.

Steve flaps a hand. “The super secret Soviet assassin death stare conversation.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, sighing again. He crosses the wreckage and pulls Steve to his feet. “You said Stark designed these. I had some hope.”

“Have you ever seen Tony in the kitchen?” Nat and Steve say in unison.

Bucky makes a face. “That’s fair.”

____________

 

Steve wanders off to the art section of the library while Bucky goes upstairs. Books on Van Gogh, Picasso, and Gauguin are thin on the shelf but feel heavy in his hands. It’s times like this that he feels it, the fact that he could’ve been this, too. A painter, a drawer; something other than Cap. Even with his new strength the fact of it is hard to hold. He slides the books back into place.

He makes his way to the stairs, passing through the World War II section as he goes. There are quite a few books with his face on them. He does his best to ignore them.

There’s one of Peggy, though, and a rare biography on Gabe Jones, so he picks them up.

Bucky meets him on the stairs between the second and third floor. Wordlessly, he hands Steve a stack of movies that have someone wearing his face.

“These are,” he tries. “Wow?”

“He looks more like you when he shaves,” Bucky says, bumping Steve’s shoulder with his stomach; he’s up two steps, as usual.

Steve shuffles the movies, studying Evans’ face closely. “A little.” A lot.

“It’s weird, huh?” Bucky says brightly. “The lady helped me find someone who looks like me, look.”

The movie Bucky hands him is called  _ The Martian, _ and it takes Steve a bit to remember that NASA hasn’t gone to Mars. There is no one who looks like Bucky on the cover. He raises an eyebrow at him.

Bucky tilts his head. “She said he’s in the movie,” he says. “Sebastian Stan? I think. She told me to Google him but I told her I didn’t have a phone.”

“You do have a phone,” Steve says absently. He’s gone back to looking through the movies.

“I,” Bucky starts, and the note of embarrassment in his voice makes Steve look up. “I may have—”

“Forgotten how to use it?” Steve says, biting down a grin.

“May have. I don’t think it likes my metal arm, really,” Bucky says. His face is flushed red.

Steve stretches up to kiss his cheek. “I like your arm.”

It takes Bucky a second to reply. “You’re not a phone,” he says, smiling. “Doesn’t count.”

____________

 

Sebastian Stan looks a scary amount like Bucky, but that’s not the most significant discovery of the evening. Steve divided his time between watching the movie and watching Bucky being amazed by the movie. A few times his mouth was hanging open thanks to a particularly spectacular special effect, or a specific touching line, or the music. 

The last time Steve saw him this excited was at the World Expo, and before that at Coney Island. This is, he thinks to himself, a nice change.

At the end of the movie, Bucky’s crying silently. Steve pulls him close and tries not to cry himself.

When the credits roll up the screen, Bucky says, “That—” he pauses “—was a good movie.”

“It was,” says Steve. He rests his chin on the top of Bucky’s head and hums.

“I want to go to space.”

“You do?”

Bucky says, “Yeah. So long as it’s not like they did,” and Steve laughs. Bucky smiles against Steve’s stomach and wipes his eyes with his shirt.

“You don’t wanna have an entire planet to yourself,” Steve says, “or figure out how to live off potatoes?”

“I’m pretty content with the work I’ve already done to advance science.”

He says this somewhat bitterly. Steve kisses his temple and stands, and they hold hands on their way to bed.

____________

 

Tony complains about their nighttime habits the next morning; he has the floor underneath theirs. 

“Honestly, c’mon. You went seventy years,” Tony says, pouring himself some coffee. “I’d think you could take a break for one night.”

Clint’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Every night?”

Steve and Bucky look at each other, then at everyone. They shrug.

“Every night isn’t that impressive,” Nat says casually. Clint and Tony choke on their coffee. Sam winks at Nat, and she bumps his elbow with her own.

Bucky says, “And seventy years is a long time, Tony.”

“I’d say you’re pretty lucky we stopped now,” Steve adds.

Thor shovels the majority of the bacon onto his plate and says, “I would not say that you have stopped. Someone is trying to engage me in the Midgardian game called ‘footsie’ under the table.”

Steve goes bright red. “Wrong foot.”

____________

 

One week in has earned him the vaguest suggestion of hair on his jaw. Steve runs a thumb over it now while Bucky watches, sitting on the bathroom counter with a splotch of toothpaste on the corner of his mouth. 

“Less than a month?” Bucky says around his toothbrush, eyes squinty the way they are when he’s trying to keep from laughing. He spits in the sink. “You sure?”

“I’ve still got a little less than three weeks,” Steve says. He brushes his teeth, rubbing his free hand against his scruff as he does. It’s somewhat prickly now. It gives him an idea.

He spits and rinses his toothbrush and mouth. Bucky raises his eyebrows from his seat on the counter as Steve pushes his knees apart and stands between his legs. Steve leans forward, hands pressed to the counter just inches from Bucky’s ass, and looks up at Bucky with his mouth deliberately slightly open.

Bucky says, “Trying to seduce me, Rogers?” 

Steve just, ever so slightly, sucks in his bottom lip.

Bucky clears his throat and shifts his weight. “Not that I’m complaining, but what’s—?”

“Just c’mere,” Steve says softly. 

He straightens enough to hook his fingers into the collar of Bucky’s holey SSR sweatshirt, the one Peggy had given Steve ages ago, and he pulls him in close. Bucky’s eyelids flutter closed. His lips part.

Steve teases him by drawing his thumb across Bucky’s bottom lip before rubbing his beard scruff against his jaw.

“Wha—no, not fair!”

He ducks away, laughing. Bucky glares at him balefully before inspecting his face in the mirror.

“Steve, you ass—beard burn?”

Steve says, “I love you?” and Bucky throws the toothpaste cap at him, shaking his head.

“I love you too,” he says, fond. “Punk.”

____________

 

Gabe’s biography has a section filled with pictures. 

They’re printed on a different kind of paper, something whiter and stiffer than the rest of the book, and when Steve realizes it—when he feels that difference, the weight of it—he walks immediately into their kitchen where Bucky’s on his computer and says, “Bed?”

It’s not a sexual request. Bucky hears the simple need to be held in his voice, Steve can tell by his face, and he nods without asking. 

“Of course, Stevie,” Bucky says, softer than usual. Steve waits, shoulders hunched and arms folded tight, while Bucky gathers his computer and notebook. Bucky balances them in his left hand and gently twines his flesh fingers together with Steve’s.

They slide off their jeans and pull on pajamas, and Steve tries to focus on Bucky instead of the book on the bed. Bucky catches him looking and raises his eyebrows with a little smile, but it’s a sad one, and Steve knows they both know.

Some days are easier than others, Steve thinks. 

They peel away the covers and settle onto the bed, Steve’s head on Bucky’s chest. He feels Bucky smoothing his right hand over his hair, murmuring something slow and quiet and loving, and he sinks into his touch. After a few minutes Steve reaches for Gabe’s biography.

Some days are easier than others, but. There will, he thinks, always be too many ghosts in their bed. 

____________

 

“I want to go to the space station,” Steve tells Maria Hill over the phone. He glances over his shoulder; Natasha’s staring at him with a mouth full of Cheerios, but he just shrugs at her. She raises her head in a  _ we’ll talk later _ sort of way. Bucky ambles over to with a plate full of scrambled eggs and he and Nat start talking about a way to pay Sam back for some birdseed around the tower.

Maria’s voice, when she speaks, is clipped as usual. “The International Space Station, or to Houston?”

“There’s a difference?” He stops her before she starts explaining with a hasty, “I’m kidding. Houston.”

“Definitely easier,” and here Steve can hear a wry smile through the phone. “Why?”

Steve leans against the counter, careful to avoid the shards still on the ground; they have a bet going to see how many days will pass before Tony realizes it’s broken. “Olivia Jones,” he says, and Maria takes a quick breath.

“Ah,” she says. A few seconds pass. “I’ve scheduled you and Bucky a flight for Wednesday, does that work? Tony should be back by then, and if not, then we’ll bring him back so you can use the jet.”

He closes his eyes. “That’s perfect.”

“I’ll see you in the hangar,” Maria says, and hangs up.

Steve hangs up his phone. Bucky looks up, saying something about shifting all of Sam’s furniture just a little to the left—“No, because I don’t want to deal with that too,” Nat interrupts—and Steve kisses him full on.

It’s a good kiss. His lips are parted when they meet Bucky’s, and Bucky’s lips are a little rough from the winter, and his own jaw is stubbled still, but it’s something he can have now. 

It’s a reminder too and he knows Bucky knows. It’s a reminder for himself, for them both, that they’re both here. That they’re okay.

Bucky pulls away first and presses his forehead against Steve’s. Steve runs his thumb across Bucky’s jaw.

Bucky says, “You okay?” and he smiles.

“Better now,” Steve says, and pulls him close.

Over Bucky’s shoulder Natasha’s watching them with a strange expression on her face.

“What?” Steve asks. He holds Bucky tighter.

Natasha waves a hand aimlessly. “Just. You two. You’re sweet,” she says, and now she smiles.

“You sap, Romanov,” Bucky says, and Nat just shrugs.

____________

 

Sam comes with them last minute, so while they’re in the air Steve half-listens to Sam and Bucky bickering warmly with each other about airplane food. Maria interrupts now and then with a biting comment or lighthearted remark, and Steve observes them all with some heavy tiredness on his chest.

“It’s like bird food really, it’s crumbly,” Sam says, shaking his head.

Bucky says, “You’d know all about bird food, wouldn’t you?” and Maria snorts. Steve smiles slightly.

“Shut up Barnes, at least I don’t drink motor oil.”

“That was one time,” Bucky says indignantly, “and it was for science—”

“Please tell me you didn’t think Tony was serious about that,” Sam says. He’s laughing one of his upper body laughs, the ones where he’s shaking just so slightly and grinning wide. He catches Steve’s eye, and in that moment he looks very much like he’s hoping Bucky will tell him the opposite.

Suddenly Sam stops laughing and narrows his eyes at Bucky. “Hold on a second,” he says, “you wouldn’t be the reason all my furniture is now exactly four inches to the left of normal, are you? Because I put birdseed in your pillow?”

“Do you really think I’d be that petty—”

_ “Yes.” _

Steve bursts out laughing.

“You’re all children,” Maria says, and they all laugh at that too. Maria smiles a little and goes back to her crossword.

Later, once everyone else has fallen asleep and Bucky’s and Sam’s snoring fills the plane, Steve takes out Gabe’s biography again and flips to the photographs. A fair amount of them are from the war, and a fair amount of those are from before he got there: there’s Gabe and Jim Morita in the mess tent, pulling faces at the food; Dugan stares out at him, axe on his shoulder, a pile of firewood under his boot; Peggy in profile, standing with her arms folded in front of Phillips; Bucky—Bucky with smile-squinted eyes, his features blurred because of his laugh. 

It makes him wonder whether any of his photographs made it. They probably have; he hasn’t looked at any of his numerous biographies, but Coulson made enough references to the layout of his and Bucky’s Brooklyn apartment that he suspects they’re being kept somewhere. His sketchbook is in the Smithsonian, he knows; Maria offered to get it back for him a few years back, but he waved her off. He wishes he had it now. He’s got a lot of sketches of them in it.

Next to him, Bucky mumbles about the Tin Man from  _ Wizard of Oz, _ and the tension in Steve’s chest eases.

____________

 

Sam and Bucky stop pestering each other as soon as they step into mission control.

“Holy fuck,” Bucky says in an awed whisper. 

“Maybe later,” Steve says, dazed himself. 

Maria elbows him, jerking her head toward their liaison. Amazingly, though, Wendy doesn’t look offended.

“We get that reaction a lot,” she says. She catches Bucky’s eye and winks. “We always say no though.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. The tips of his ears are red so Steve kisses him there, and they turn redder. 

He understands the reaction though. Mission control is rows upon rows of computers and blinking lights and panels that make Tony’s lab look—well, not ‘tame’, but normal in comparison. The rows are facing a giant blue screen that takes up the majority of the fourth wall, and the screen is fragmented into different sections that appear to be measuring different things. Steve has no idea what these ‘things’ are, but a quick glance at Sam and Maria make him feel better; they don’t seem to have any idea either.

Sam asks, “How does this work? Is it video conferencing or typing-based, or what?”

“We’ll be talking to Olivia via a satellite feed,” Wendy says. She checks her watch. “So you’ll be able to ask her questions and talk in nearly real time; there’ll be a slight delay, but it’s minimal.” 

“When will—” Steve starts, but the largest section of the screen goes bright white and then coalesces into an image of a woman with dark skin, braids, and a NASA crewneck. She has Gabe’s eyes. The words die in Steve’s throat.

Someone takes his hand silently. He looks up, and Bucky nudges his shoulder and squeezes his fingers.

Wendy does the introductions and it’s hard to remember that Gabe has died, because his granddaughter looks so much like him. Steve realizes after a few minutes of awkward conversation that he’s making her uncomfortable by looking at her so closely, so he focuses on Bucky’s fingers and on Sam’s hand on his shoulder.

Bucky leads the conversation, asking questions about her training and her duties in the space station; he’s talking out of nerves and surprise for the most part. Steve knows him enough to know this. No, she hasn’t gone on a space walk yet, but she’s scheduled for this February; she’s a little nervous, but excited. He says something about  _ The Martian, _ and she says, floating absently to one side of the screen, that it’s not superbly inaccurate. Zero-g is weird, she says in response to Maria’s question, or was, but she’s used to it now. Sam asks her to do a flip then and she does, smiling a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes the way that Gabe’s smile did. 

It’s this smile that does it. “Do you remember him?” Steve blurts. Bucky looks at him in something like panic, but he shakes his head. “I’ve been dying to know, I didn’t know you—” He takes a breath. Olivia’s picking at the hem of her sleeve, her forehead creased. “You’re the only one,” Steve finishes.

“The only one?” Olivia asks, glancing at Wendy.

Maria says, “The only surviving relative of the original Howling Commandos,” and Sam sighs.

Olivia’s quiet at that. Wendy places a hand on Steve’s arm and says, “This might be all for today, Mr. Jones passed away a few years ago and I don’t want—”

“It’s okay, Grandpa talked about him all the time,” Olivia says. She meets Steve’s eyes levelly. “He’s family, really. What do you want to know?”

____________

 

The plane back to the compound is relatively quiet. Bucky cracks a few jokes about space potatoes out of nerves and ends up trailing his fingers lightly up and down Steve’s back. 

“You okay?” Sam asks in a low voice after Bucky nods off. 

Steve shrugs. “She looks so much like him,” is all he says. 

Sam says, “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to say I’m jealous,” Steve begins, and then waves a hand helplessly. There’s too much happening in his heart right now.

“Because Gabe got his kids and grandkids?”

Steve nods, swallows. “He got his life,” he says, and now there are tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. “He got his life but he’s dead, Sam, he is, and I should be too—Bucky and I both—and it’s wrong that we’re here when all of them aren’t.”

He’s crying now. He rubs at his eyes, thankful Sam hasn’t commented. “And I can’t be jealous because I’m here and in love but—”

“But you missed something,” Sam finishes. “You lost something along the way Steve, both of you did. I think it’s fair that you mourn that, too.”

____________

 

Bucky runs a hand over Steve’s chin that night. “Not too bad,” he says softly, and then kisses just under Steve’s jaw. 

“Yeah?” Steve ghosts his lips over Bucky’s and draws back, faintly amused, when Bucky’s eyes shut at first and then open in reproach. “My beard’s coming in okay?”

“Your beard.” Bucky shakes his head, fond. “Nah, I meant your kissing. It’s not too bad.”

Steve makes a face at him. “I’ll show you not too bad,” he says, and then pins Bucky’s hand above his head, and Bucky doesn’t complain about his kissing the rest of the night.

____________

 

“Sam told me about the plane back,” Nat says by way of a greeting a few days later. She’s got a few new scratches on her cheek, and her right arm is in a sling. Steve scowls.

“What happened to you?”

She pulls open the fridge and purses her lips at the selection. “Routine sweep in D.C.,” she says. She takes out a milk carton and holds it for him to open.

He opens and hands it back, folds his arms, and says, “Nat.”

“Okay, not entirely routine. The world almost ended but Clint and I handled it.” She smirks. “Just another Friday, right?”

“Nat.”

Sam swoops in, kisses Nat on the cheek, and snags the milk. “She fell down the stairs in our room,” Sam says casually. “Do we have any cereal?”

Nat narrows her eyes at him. Steve stifles a laugh at Sam’s mock innocent look. 

“Stairs, Romanov? Thought you were supposed to be a master assassin.”

“Screw you, Rogers.” But she’s laughing.

Bucky pads into the kitchen then, and the sight of him in Steve’s old SSR sweatshirt pulls at something fond in his chest. Bucky rubs his eyes, yawns, and says, “Think that’s my job, thanks. Someone make me some toast?”

“That’s not  _ my _ job,” Sam mutters, and he ducks out of the kitchen.

____________

 

Ages ago Clint suggested a chill night, a kind of hobby night, for next time they’re all off, so when he pops into Steve and Bucky’s room—eyes covered; Sam must have reminded him—with a Nerf bow and arrow they both already know why he’s there.

“We’re not naked, Barton, calm down,” Steve says, somewhat exasperated.

Bucky mutters, “Not anymore, anyway,” and Steve gives him a look.

“You can never be sure with you two.” 

Clint leads them into the common area, which has been cleared of any extraneous furniture and been populated instead with a workbench occupied by Tony and Bruce, a larger cushy couch that’s mostly filled by Thor, two yoga mats for Nat and Sam, a large easel, and a target.

“Not a bad setup,” Bucky says in appreciation. The TV’s been hooked up to a game station and Bucky hops over the back of the couch and starts playing a racing game with Thor. 

“Tried to get something for everyone,” Clint says breezily. Underneath his words, though, Steve catches a note of uncertainty, so he says, “You did good, Clint. This was a good idea.”

Clint rubs the back of his neck. “The easel’s okay?”

All told, the easel’s a bit intimidating; it’s fitted with a few huge pieces of paper that seem to expect something from him. Steve hasn’t painted or drawn in ages, but something Olivia had said had gotten to him.  _ He’s family, really. _ “The easel’s perfect.”

“Oh good.” Clint shoots Tony in the leg with a rubber arrow, and Tony flips him off good naturedly. “I wasn’t sure.”

Steve claps him on the shoulder, and when he says “Thank you, Clint,” he means it.

____________

 

_ He’s family, really. _

When Sarah Rogers had been ten, or so she’d told him, they hadn’t had enough money for a photograph of her family. Her mother had drawn them instead, paper and lead capturing faces that even now looked like Steve’s own. He’d grown up with his paper-and-lead family and when he’d gotten older and pinched enough pennies to buy pencils, he’d spent the days sketching his mother. He could probably draw her blind, now. Her and Bucky both.

Steve hadn’t spent as much time drawing his other family. His war sketches were all quick movements and harsh lines, not nearly enough to capture the softness of Dernier’s nose, or Morita’s decisive laugh or the care in Falsworth’s uniform. He’s let a lot of his family slip through the cracks.

The blankness of the easel is almost too intimidating. It’s asking him if he knew them at all.

With three quick twists, Steve sharpens his pencils. His hand shakes just so slightly when he presses the tip of his pencil to the paper. 

_ He’s family, really.  _ He owes them this.

____________

 

“Hey, come to bed.”

Steve yawns, shakes out his right hand. “You know I can’t, Buck.” 

Bucky comes up behind him and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. He presses a kiss to his neck, and Steve shivers slightly. “You’re freezing,” Bucky says. He kisses a little smile into Steve’s shoulder. “Come to bed, let me warm you up.”

“I can’t,” Steve says. He turns his head to kiss Bucky’s cheek. “I have to do this. I want to.”

Bucky tilts his head, reaches out for the drawings. Steve shifts his chair closer to the easel and Bucky sifts through the pages, his fingers light and careful. It feels like, Steve thinks, Bucky’s looking through him, too.

“These are.” Bucky stops on a drawing of himself, and Steve’s alarmed by the catch in his voice. “These are beautiful. Is this all of us?”

“All of us so far,” Steve says. “I want to buy paints, too. Do a proper portrait of the Howlies and Avengers.”

“Both of our families.”

Something wet splashes onto Steve’s shoulder; he stands and Bucky lets him pull him into a hug. Steve pulls back and brushes the tears from Bucky’s eyes and kisses him soft and slow.

“Come to bed,” Steve whispers.

“You don’t have to; it’s late, I was trying to be responsible, that’s all.”

“Bucky Barnes, responsible? Never,” Steve says, and Bucky’s mouth tugs into a smile. 

“Sometimes.”

Steve kisses him again.

“Stop that, or I’ll make you shave,” Bucky says. Steve kisses just beneath his ear now, making sure to rub his scruff on Bucky’s skin. “Chris Evans wouldn’t treat me like this,” Bucky says now, but he kisses Steve back.

“C’mon,” Steve whispers, once this has gone on awhile. They stand and Bucky massages out Steve’s drawing hand and then Steve shuffles his drawings together. Peggy stares at him over a cigarette, and even though he knows it’s just a drawing—just  _ his _ drawing—something inside him pinches painfully. He flips the paper over.

Bucky says, voice light enough to be mock casual, “Did you know George W. Bush was painting portraits, too? Of some of his veterans. I guess they’ve put them in a book somewhere.”

Steve twines their fingers together and they make their way to the bathroom. He says, “In a gallery, too.” He’d come across several articles about it in the early days of trying to catch up.

They brush their teeth, making excuses to touch each other while doing so. An eyelash on Bucky’s cheek. Casually knocking hands while reaching for the toothpaste. Bucky, smoothing down Steve’s cowlick, letting his hand rest on the back of Steve’s neck. Steve crinkles the corners of his eyes at him.

A thought strikes him then. “Do you think,” Steve starts, rinsing out his mouth, “that the Smithsonian—?”

“That’s where I was going with that too,” Bucky says. Steve meets his eyes in the mirror. “I think they’d love to have some portraits of the Howlies and the Avengers, especially if they were painted by Steve Rogers.”

“Do you think Peggy would mind if—”

“I don’t think anyone would mind,” Bucky says, his voice soft. Steve squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath. “Her least of all. I think she’d like to have a painting of her with her favorite cigarettes in the Smithsonian. And I think the Howlies would be grateful that you’re remembering them.”

Steve’s quiet at that. It feels even more like a huge undertaking now that they’ve verbalized it; it’s more tangible now, this plan of his.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Bucky says softly. Steve reaches up for him, and Bucky wraps his arms around his shoulders. Steve leans against him and lets himself be held. “We can ask Sharon for reference photos. Fury probably has files on everyone connected to you, and all those will have photos too. Not to mention your sketchbook.” Bucky says this last with his lips pressing against Steve’s neck. “You can do this.”

Tomorrow Steve will ask about getting paints and a canvas and brushes. Tomorrow, he’ll see if Maria can get him his sketchbook back, and he’ll draft a few letters to the Smithsonian curators in the meantime. Tomorrow he will convince the Avengers to sit for a picture at the very least and he will try to gather his memories about the Howlies. It’s time that he shares what he knows of them. All of them have waited long enough.

They start down the hall to their room and Steve says, “I know.”

Maybe, he thinks to himself as they pull on pajama pants and old shirts, maybe he can give their ghosts some peace.

“Come to bed,” Bucky says, his voice soft, and Steve does.

__________________

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr; [come say hi :)](http://untiltheendofthelinebuck)


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